DESPATCHES, REPOETS, COEEESPONDENCE, ETC. 631 



colonies were to send all their products raw to England, and take 

 everything from England in the last stage of manufacture. The 

 treaty of peace did not stipulate for a change of that policy as 

 between the United States and Canada, although the American Con- 

 gress did, in April, 1776, sweep away, so far as it could, that monop- 

 oly system from the ports it controlled, abolish British custom houses 

 and put none in their stead, proclaim absolute free trade in the place 

 of heavy restrictions, invite products from any place to come in 

 friendly vessels, and authorise American products to be exported 

 without tax. 



After the thirteen States had acquired their independence, Ameri- 

 can vessels were not only excluded from the ports of the British 

 colonies, but Canada, as a reward for its loyalty, received the ex- 

 clusive privilege of supplying the British West Indies with timber 

 and provisions, to the great injury of the latter, whose nearest ports 

 were the American Gulf ports and South American ports. 



It will be observed that this article, in continuing, confirming, and 

 establishing the thirteen States and their inhabitants in the taking 

 of fish on the banks, in the Gulf and in the sea, uses the word 

 " rights" but uses the word " liberty " in confirming to American 

 fishermen the taking of fish on the coasts, bays and creeks of every 

 part of the British dominions in America. The word " rights " is 

 thus applied to fishing in the open sea, which by public law is com- 

 mon to all nations, and was intended to affirm that Great Britain did 

 not claim to hold by treaty engagements, or in any other manner, an 

 exclusive right of fishing therein. The word " liberty " is thus ap- 

 plied to taking fish, to drying and curing fishj on what was, anterior 

 to the treaty, within the jurisdiction, or territorial waters of Great 

 Britain, but an exclusive right of taking fish therein was not hers. 

 " Liberty" as thus used, implies a freedom from restraint or inter- 

 ference in fishing along the British coasts. 



Canada having been, by the aid of men of the New England 

 colonies, conquered for the English in 1759, the conquest having been 

 confirmed in 1763 by the treaty of Paris, and the sovereignty of 

 Newfoundland having been conceded to Great Britain by the peace 

 of Utrecht in 1713, the American Colonists, who bravely endured 

 sacrifices in war to accomplish those results, shared therein, as 

 British subjects down to 1783, when, by treaty, England stipulated 

 that the citizens of the " free, sovereign, and independent " States of 

 America shall continue to share, and share alike, with British sub- 

 jects in such coast fishing. Lord North having in 1775, proposed 

 to the House of Commons to exclude the fishermen of New England 

 from the Banks of Newfoundland, and to restrain them from a toil 

 in which they excelled the world, the joint right to the fisheries 

 became a vital part of the great American struggle. "God and 

 nature," said Johnston, " have given that fishery to New England 

 and not to Old" Americans, Britons, and British Canadians became, 

 by the treaty, partners in the fisheries. It created a "servitude or 

 public law " in favour of American fishermen. "ALL British coasts, 

 bays, and creeks" in America were thereby, as Secretary Manning 

 so aptly says, made a part of our "American fisheries," to which 

 our tariff laws, thereafter enacted, referred and attached, and so 

 made the products thereof exempt from duty on entry at our ports. 



